So What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?

[flagold]

You are George Cosgrove (“Dad” Cosgrove to me) a brand new minted B-17 pilot for the United States Army Air Force separated from your original crew by flu, but fresh off the transport at a field in England expecting to receive something similar to this on arrival:



A brand spanking new B-17 to fly, wage war and smite them hip and thigh. A couple weeks go by while you wait and watch others taking off and you haven’t been assigned anything. Curious about your in limbo status you go to the C.O. and are informed there is a B-17 awaiting, but you’ll have to go get it. It’s on the outer ring of London and since you haven’t flown in awhile you’ll be co-pilot for a very experienced Captain. You and he are thenceforth ferried to an auxiliary field where your new steed awaits and this is what you arrive to:



A well worn and sporadically shot up older model B-17 being patched together. After a few days more of testing and waiting (the engines are balky) it is finally ready. You and your very experienced pilot take off for the main field.
He decides to take a short cut over London and the next thing you know, he’s down and dodging the cabled barrage balloons designed to slice wings off any plane daring to get into their spider web of steel.




“Watch this Geogie boy: stomp on the rudder and you can slip that cable with no trouble at all! Wasn’t that fun! Yeehaw!”
It’s a wonder you weren’t run over since you exited that plane so fast and ran to the C.O. office to tell him about this nut job and flight but he’s totally nonplussed about the whole deal. He informs you that this pilot has had a lot of missions and been under a heck of a lot of stress and they’re trying to give him some easy “safe” missions to fly so he can be sent home . . . but my goodness boy - you’ve got yourself a B-17!
Unfortunately your B-17 has been under a lot of stress too, so much so that it’s due to be replaced soon. You’ll be assigned as “tail end Charlie” of the bomber stream until you get the new model. Your 5 missions in the bird are mainly missions of “keep up” and because the engines are so tired you find yourself continually having to cut corners to stay with the bomber stream:



But just prior to your 6th mission, you get it: A BRAND NEW B-17!!!! Unbelievable! You have one - new powerful engines, everything tight! Your first mission with it is a “milk run (easy)” mission. While over the target you take one of the few sporadic flak bursts to be seen that day and everyone has to bail out.


You spend the next two years shuttling from Luftwaffe camp to Luftwaffe camp as a prisoner (escaping once but re-captured by German farmers).

That was your war.

Happy Memorial Day Vets!

[Farmer Hank]

I had a good friend in Kalispell who was a gunner on a B-24. Missed his 25th mission due to illness. Flew with another crew over Ploesti and was shot down. Incarcerated at Stalag 17. If you remember “Hogan’s Heroes” the set was exactly what Frank Paliga sketched. Frank was from Butte; he spoke Czech. He escaped at least twice and lived off the land with Russian deserters. Diet was potatoes, and Frank’s hair turned white. Frank served many years on the Montana Highway Patrol and became a real estate broker in Kalispell. My wife and I had the privilege of giving Frank and his wife a trip back to Austria. A local guide took them back to where Stalag 17 had been. Overgrown, but some concrete was still evident. Frank never flew again except once when we flew around Flathead Valley in my Comanche. It was a privilege to have known him.

[Brandsman]

Well here’s a bit of a different perspective from another part of the world. My father was an orphan but managed to get into a pilot training scheme in 1939. Learned flying in a Ryan STA and moved on to the Avro Tutor and Hawker Hind. He was frustrated to be selected to instruct in the Empire training scheme to supply pilots for the RAF expansion and he taught plenty of people to fly from 1940 to mid 1943 when he finally got sent «*north «*to Egypt to fly B-24s - only they didn’t arrive when expected and he got diverted to C-47s in a new squadron doing missions all over North Africa. Lucky to miss thé B-24s because the two South African squadrons were decimated flying supplies into Warsaw during the Polish uprising. In late 1944 he finally got his dream posting to De Havilland Mosquitoes. With 60 Squadron SAAF they flew unarmed PRU missions from San Severo in Italy to take pictures over the whole theatre including over the Reich. It was a SAAF Mosquito that first detected the death camps and a SAAF Mosquito that first tangled with a Me 262 and survived to bring back sketches of the German jet. My Dad also got damage a month later from being jumped by a 262, but made it back on one engine. It shook them all up a bit because they had been almost immune to interception flying high and fast at 36 000 feet but this new fighter could close on them from out of sight in less than a minute! He went on to fly 117 missions on Operation Plainfare - the Berlin airlift - back on C-47s, in June-December 1948. After becoming one of the first helicopter pilots flying the Sikorsky S-51 spraying DDT to fight malaria in northern Zululand, he volunteered to fly P-51s in Korea when that war started but was refused for being too old to be a fighter pilot! His friends went to the South African squadron that fought there. So he left the SAAF in 1951 and went to the airline Central African Airways. He finally finished up flying back in the SAAF on C-47s again in 1984. Politics changed a lot in the sixties and the South African and Rhodesian contributions to the war effort in WW2 has been suppressed and ignored, but they actually played a big role and Major Wheeldon’s military career is a small part of it. He inspired all of his 4 sons to fly with his passion for aviation - 2 became commercial pilots while I went to law but fly for fun with Cubs and other interesting aircraft.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org

[Ken Robbins]

When I was a kid, my family moved into a new but modest house and the neighbor was a weird old man that never spoke to me. After some years of waving to him with little response and seeing him struggle with heavy drinking I figured he was just a lost soul. When I turned 17 and passed my PPL check ride (my dad had apparently told him), he came over and congratulated me. He said he had been a pilot once and reluctantly told me his story. A B-17 pilot, 23rd mission over Germany and shot down. His crew got out but one was killed while under canopy with the balance rescued by resistance fighters. He was not so lucky and spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp. It was commanded by a brutal officer and he was the only pilot there at the time. It brought him special attention and left him broken.
He proved to be one fine individual, and I learned much about judgement. He also fine tuned my respect for veterans and the burden some carry for their service.

Ken

[Cubus Maximus]

My neighbor "Bumpy" Bruning flew B-24's with the 15th out of North Africa and Italy. Low flight over the Med dousing his crew in back with sea spray, Vienna with flak "thick enough to walk on" and many other memories (he still had the keys to his last Liberator and flight manuals that appear never to have been cracked open). One memory that stands out for me was he and the crew picking up a brand new 24 and heading for the south Atlantic air route with a night stop at a base in Colorado. Approaching the blacked out field he asked the tower to turn on the runway lights when a few miles out. Lights came on and he lined up on the strip. Full flaps, gear down, short final, landing lights on.... WHOA! the tower turned on the taxiway lights! There are 20 Cessna Bobcats lined up, props turning for a night training mission! POWER ON....and ROARRRRRR... 20 feet above the line up of aircraft... WHEW!!

[flagold]

There are/were probably many of us here that are very grateful for meeting and in some cases flying with the stick and rudder generation. In my case George Cosgrove above was my main ground tutor and gave me major jump on things before I turned the first blade (well, actually I hand propped the first blade since my high-school algebra teacher couldn't afford a new battery).


John Boggs flying into Ormond Beach, 1978 (I was an A&P at that time)

My life turned 180º for the better when one of Pappy Gunn's pilots and protege' of his flew into my life for 5 wonderful years of learning and that was John Boggs. JB led me to Johnny Neile (Flying Tiger) and on and on it went. As a young man I assumed radials and that life would go on forever but as an old man I know how quickly it all ends. I left a film of my feeble flying ability in a re-creation of their teaching in the "Arts & Science of Flying" forum for whomever comes later, hopefully all that won't be forgotten. I gave JB credit in that for his knowledge:


I was recently looking up his date of death for another project and was shocked to find him speaking online. You could do a whole lot worse than getting the info secondhand from me - I didn’t realize the whole bottom left engine on his B-25 was blown off when he got wounded and was sent back to the states to be a fighter instructor. I can see he's struggling mightily to complete this piece you see, as he's very close to the end with end stage cancer:

https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.12844/

I'll just add one more thing - the shark nosed painted B-25's you see in many WWII Pacific pictures are his unit in action.

He was most certainly one of the best stick and rudder men to every fly.

Good luck with your flying.

[hatz215]

A friend of mine flew the Twin Cat in 78. Here's what he had to say about it:

Here is the infamous Twin Cat at Salisbury, Md. In Jan. of 1978.
This thing was a Sam Goldman project, Sam was a big mil-surplus parts dealer. At the time this was taken he had T6 wings and fuselages stacked up like cord wood behind his hanger.
He needed to get this thing to Las Vegas to the Ag convention in Feb. It was not certified centerline thrust yet so he needed an experienced Ag-Cat pilot with a multi engine rating. In those days most ag pilots just had a commercial. Somehow he found me.
I’m on the right in my field jacket and bell bottoms, Sams mechanic just finished putting a camera and recorder in there. In those days all that was about the size of a suitcase. My job was to take the thing up and feather one engine so they could have a video proving the thing could fly on one engine. Two TSIO 540’s form a Navaho. Hugh Wheeless, Dothan,AL. had already flown it a few days before.
I called him before I went to Salisbury to ask how it flew. Turns out he had put 250 gal. in it and pulled one engine. His remarks were “don’t do that, you will just have an extra 3 or 4 minutes to figure out where you are going to crash”.
They wanted me to feather one engine and then come back and land on one engine. The thing had no rudder trim. After I shut the right engine down I found I did not have enough rudder or strength in my leg to keep it pointed straight ahead without reducing power on the left engine. I can’t remember if I landed with the right engine feathered or not, too long ago. But I did tell them if you don’t put rudder trim on this thing the FAA isn’t going to certify it.
He built two of these the A-model in these pictures and a B-model. Someone crashed the B-model in Fla. I think and was killed. The A-model ended up in Oak Grove, LA. Not far from where my strip was and the mechanic there converted it back to a 1340.
I did not fly it to Vegas. The weather sucked and he insisted I just file and get on top to get over the mountains using a portable oxygen tank. It had a full panel and radios, but no cabin heat and only 2 hours of fuel. I told him I wasn’t interested in committing suicide so I backed out of the deal.

[flagold]

A friend of mine flew the Twin Cat in 78. Here's what he had to say about it:

Here is the infamous Twin Cat at Salisbury, Md. In Jan. of 1978.
This thing was a Sam Goldman project, Sam was a big mil-surplus parts dealer. At the time this was taken he had T6 wings and fuselages stacked up like cord wood behind his hanger.
He needed to get this thing to Las Vegas to the Ag convention in Feb. It was not certified centerline thrust yet so he needed an experienced Ag-Cat pilot with a multi engine rating. In those days most ag pilots just had a commercial. Somehow he found me.
I’m on the right in my field jacket and bell bottoms, Sams mechanic just finished putting a camera and recorder in there. In those days all that was about the size of a suitcase. My job was to take the thing up and feather one engine so they could have a video proving the thing could fly on one engine. Two TSIO 540’s form a Navaho. Hugh Wheeless, Dothan,AL. had already flown it a few days before.
I called him before I went to Salisbury to ask how it flew. Turns out he had put 250 gal. in it and pulled one engine. His remarks were “don’t do that, you will just have an extra 3 or 4 minutes to figure out where you are going to crash”.
They wanted me to feather one engine and then come back and land on one engine. The thing had no rudder trim. After I shut the right engine down I found I did not have enough rudder or strength in my leg to keep it pointed straight ahead without reducing power on the left engine. I can’t remember if I landed with the right engine feathered or not, too long ago. But I did tell them if you don’t put rudder trim on this thing the FAA isn’t going to certify it.
He built two of these the A-model in these pictures and a B-model. Someone crashed the B-model in Fla. I think and was killed. The A-model ended up in Oak Grove, LA. Not far from where my strip was and the mechanic there converted it back to a 1340.
I did not fly it to Vegas. The weather sucked and he insisted I just file and get on top to get over the mountains using a portable oxygen tank. It had a full panel and radios, but no cabin heat and only 2 hours of fuel. I told him I wasn’t interested in committing suicide so I backed out of the deal.

Thanks for that!

Was your friend Denny? John Snead and I picked up 2 TIO 540's from Lycoming and headed to Sam's in Salisbury to convert the B (under Bogg's orders). Got about 1/3 way into the (Denny supplied the B-Cat) conversion and Sam was proving to be one giant pain, stalling us at every turn. His mechanic, Saul, told us on the QT he didn't want to lose control of the project even though Jack Hunt (Embrey Riddle) had bought him out - he was after something but couldn't figure out what. So after waiting awhile for Sam to leave his airplane junkyard (he owned the largest AT-6 parts & fuselage inventory in the world) we put the radial back on the AgCat, engines in a van and took off (at Bogg's direction). At that point we didn't know if we'd stolen the aircraft or what but once the ball was rolling it was too late to turn back. Denny gave Snead a quick ground checkout and Snead was in the air and I was out of there with the engines. I made it back to Ormond a few hours before Snead landed to a delighted John Boggs. Goldman was livid - tried to get us all fired but in higher echelons it was figured out what he wanted (I forgot to mention he was tied into a Las Vegas Casino) - his name on the Embrey Riddle Maintenance Technology Building when he flew down in his twin Cessna and met with the bigger boys. Jack Hunt must've been one hell of a deal maker because Sam ponied up 1 Million (huge in 197 and the Sam Goldman Maintenance Technology Building is a reality to this day.

Goldman had converted an A - we did an A and B in Ormond and did the STC under TwinCat Corporation. I think the initial hubbub with Goldman was he wanted to retain the STC under his name - but I'll never really know.

I didn't know the B had crashed.

[hatz215]

Thanks for that!

Was your friend Denny? John Snead and I picked up 2 TIO 540's from Lycoming and headed to Sam's in Salisbury to convert the B (under Bogg's orders). Got about 1/3 way into the (Denny supplied the B-Cat) conversion and Sam was proving to be one giant pain, stalling us at every turn. His mechanic, Saul, told us on the QT he didn't want to lose control of the project even though Jack Hunt (Embrey Riddle) had bought him out - he was after something but couldn't figure out what. So after waiting awhile for Sam to leave his airplane junkyard (he owned the largest AT-6 parts & fuselage inventory in the world) we put the radial back on the AgCat, engines in a van and took off (at Bogg's direction). At that point we didn't know if we'd stolen the aircraft or what but once the ball was rolling it was too late to turn back. Denny gave Snead a quick ground checkout and Snead was in the air and I was out of there with the engines. I made it back to Ormond a few hours before Snead landed to a delighted John Boggs. Goldman was livid - tried to get us all fired but in higher echelons it was figured out what he wanted (I forgot to mention he was tied into a Las Vegas Casino) - his name on the Embrey Riddle Maintenance Technology Building when he flew down in his twin Cessna and met with the bigger boys. Jack Hunt must've been one hell of a deal maker because Sam ponied up 1 Million (huge in 197 and the Sam Goldman Maintenance Technology Building is a reality to this day.

Goldman had converted an A - we did an A and B in Ormond and did the STC under TwinCat Corporation. I think the initial hubbub with Goldman was he wanted to retain the STC under his name - but I'll never really know.

I didn't know the B had crashed.

His name is Bill Hodge. Had a dusting business in Louisiana with a bunch of Cats. I've got pics if I can figure out how to post them.

[hatz215]

[flagold]

Never thought I'd see that again! If you can figure out how to post more that's great too. Don't know if I've met your friend or not, frankly. We were in and out of so many airplanes and situations back then in that field it's hard to know. We did have an operator fly in from Louisiana and give the TC a thorough ring-out that I'd never seen the likes of short of Boggs (he'd fly knife edge and all sorts of aerobatic moves in demos). In looking back at some paperwork I see the "main" office was "Wildcat Drive, Daytona Beach." That would have been Daytona Beach Aviation (owned by Embrey Riddle). Actual building was done at Ormond (also owned by Embrey Riddle then) and JB had a small trailer type office there. All demos were done at Ormond (back then it was out of the way, quiet, and you could do things you couldn't get away with elsewhere). The only other things going on was a banner operation and a guy with 3 pristine Cessna 195's that flew the entire U.S. mapping (he'd learned it in WWII).

[hatz215]

More from Bill:

It flew OK. There was 0 visibility on each side because of the engines. You could see over the nose OK. Anytime the tail was down it was a wild ass guess as to where the runway was. I never saw one with the booms on and spraying but Ag-Cats had a terrible spray pattern unless you did a lot of testing and moved the nozzles around to fill the gaps. I can’t imagine how bad that thing would have been with two props stirring things up.
It had race car acceleration empty. I can’t remember what the manifold pressure red line was but it was a bunch like 45 inches. All the takeoffs I made in it I only got to around 40 inches and it was flying before I was ready to. If Sam had of just put a turbine on there instead of what he did, he would have been King. Thing is he had an Albatross that he had put two Rolls Royce turbines on so he was aware of the improvement.

[flagold]

He's right, it jumped right off (unloaded), but any unloaded Cat with 450 or better jumps right off too so I can see how turbines would have really smoked. I loved the AgCat because it didn't trundle down the runway like a Thrush or Tractor, it takes right off and lands super short.

Goldman had a huge hanger/warehouse at the NE side of the airport that Saul took Snead and me to several times to report progress. This thing was bigger than the heavy maintenance hanger we had at Miami Eastern for engine changes and it wasn't uncommon to have 5 L10ll's parked at it. In the hanger were stacks and stacks of all kinds of WWII fuselages and engines, there would be row after row of Allisons, Rolls Royce Merlins, and any kind of radial you could name. The radials were stacked up like pillars. In the corner of this huge building was Sam Goldman sitting behind a little desk mounded high with papers, in shorts, tennis shoes, a t-shirt and cap over his balding head. To all outward appearance you would think he was a failed janitor rather than running a worldwide parts outfit and casino interest and apparently doing this all out of his head. If things weren't the way they were at that time I sure would have like going through that hangar (with Saul though).

Sam Goldman was certainly an interesting man but I got the feeling he could be a dangerous man with the kind of horsepower he had, and the the temper I saw displayed. Sounds like your friend Bill might have actually known him personally. The Ag convention at Las Vegas had to be one of the first ones ever - I worked for a short time with Chuck Stone and he was one of the founders of all that. If Bill can remember what the Casino/hotel was, we might have an idea what Goldman's connection there was.

Found this:



To the right: Engineering - Salisbury Airport. So my assumption about Sam wanting to stay in the STC for a paycheck must have been close on the mark. I do remember John Boggs going to a meeting with Jack Hunt and coming back and telling Snead and me that everything is OK, Goldman is completely out of it. Needless to say 1978 was an intense year for me and sounds like for your friend as well. Thanks for posting all that, I doubt many are interested but I sure was.

[mixer]

This conversation is extremely interesting, and that history needs to be documented someplace.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org

[flagold]

Last thing I found (on Goldman & Hunt) - evidently they were friends and our little escapade had to be smoothed over. I get it now. The below on getting an honorary doctorate (after his death).

Sam Goldman, who died in 2007, started Chesapeake Airlines in 1947, one of the earliest airlines in the United States. It was eventually purchased by the Du Pont family and evolved into Allegheny Airlines, the forerunner of US Airways. In 1949 he founded Chesapeake Airways Service Corp., one of the largest dealers of used aircraft parts in the country. Throughout his working career of more than 50 years, he donated aircraft and parts to museums around the nation, including the Smithsonian Institution.


"Sam's initial connection with Embry-Riddle began in 1965," said Bob Rockett, dean of the University's Heritage Project. "He was flying a Cessna 310 from the Bahamas when he lost an engine. He landed in Daytona Beach, where he met Embry-Riddle's first president, Jack R. Hunt."


Goldman, who advised Hunt on aircraft acquisitions and issues facing the aviation industry, was impressed and humbled that he could count the "president of the finest aviation school in the world" as one of his friends. When asked to help the University, he generously donated several airplanes, whose sale generated more than $1 million.


In recognition of his relationship with and contributions to Embry-Riddle, the Samuel Goldman Center/Aviation Maintenance Science Complex was named as a tribute to him in the mid-1970s. A special place of honor will be dedicated to his memory in the Aviation Maintenance Science department in the University's new state-of-the-art Aviation Complex.

Samuel M. Goldman was born in New York City on June 5, 1921. He was a first-generation American, the son of Jewish Russian immigrants who arrived here in the early 1900s. Sam's enthusiasm and passion for aviation developed early. He grew up in an exciting era when flight was a rapidly changing adventure, and he loved being on the cutting edge. His aviation career started in 1936 at age 15 when he attended the Harren School of Aeronautics in New York City and later graduated from the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics. He was the national champion for free-flight, gasoline- powered model airplanes, and earned his pilot's license and his Aircraft & Engine license prior to high school graduation. Sam married his junior high school sweetheart, Charlotte, and they had two children.


Sam was very proud of his 10-year service in the U.S. Army Air Corps, which really developed his aviation expertise. He was a chief warrant officer and was part of a team that opened Dover Air Force Base. He served as crew chief and flight engineer for General Cannon and General Hudnell, and he trained thousands of flight personnel. After leaving the military, Sam started Chesapeake Airlines in 1947 and served as manager of maintenance. One of the earliest airlines in the United States, Chesapeake was eventually purchased by the Du Pont family and evolved into Allegheny Airlines, the forerunner of US Airways. His experiences taught him a great deal about airplane parts, and he created the Chesapeake Airways Service Corporation in 1949. His company became one of the largest dealers of used aircraft parts in the country, supplying the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. The company remained in operation for over 53 years, throughout which time Sam redesigned planes and engines and held patents. He donated aircraft and parts to the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage, the Naval Museum in Pensacola, the Pima Air & Space Museum in Arizona, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum.
He died on Dec. 26, 2007.

[hatz215]

This is Bill in the Cat he restored after retirement. Checked me out in it a few years ago. Really fun to fly.

[flagold]

This is Bill in the Cat he restored after retirement. Checked me out in it a few years ago. Really fun to fly.

Excellent. Looks very much like the one I flew in every way, even the paint scheme except mine had bright red flames coming off the engine cylinders extending to the gear. Looked like a circus act gone wrong. 450 1964 Light Frame with the open canopy like his. I did no spraying in it - fertilizer and seeding only. I always knew it would bring me home.